The Day I Got Away With It
by Willheart
Summary: The untold tale of what Proton's childhood was like, and what finally drove him over the edge. - Oneshot. Pre-Team Rocket. Mildly shippy ArcherxProton. First person. Rated T for non kid-friendly situations, language


**Author's Note; **_This is a oneshot based on headcanons from the fanbase of Proton, a dear friend of mine, and my own interpretation. Even though I love ProtonxPetrel, this has ProtonxArcher because I don't picture Proton meeting Petrel before joining Team Rocket. Enjoy!_

* * *

'Whenever you hear your name being mentioned as the cruelest guy in Team Rocket, it never fails to feel like victory from a self-conflicted war between yourself and your sociopathic mind. Only when I mean war, I mean the inner sociopath and the self-conflicted teenager that I was had made a pact to achieve the desire of becoming someone to be ultimately feared. But that was expected for someone with an unpleasant childhood such as mine. Even though it wasn't like, the world had never heard of the classic scenario of drug abused and unplanned parents in the welfare part of a famous city. The world did however do a hell of a good job of looking the other way. And for the beginning of childhood into the preteen years, I was pretty damn good at doing the same.

Drunken, young, and uneducated my father was, he would profusely beat my mother every night. I even remember the rattling sound of his engine as he'd pull the car into our parking spot on this little ass street under my bedroom window. I was always told to go to bed earlier than most children my age, only because my mother didn't want me to see her cry as it was routine for my father to abuse her until she'd retreat into the back room and indulge in whatever illegal substance she could get her hands on until the tears stopped. He'd leave the house again to get further wasted.

I became good at ignoring it when I was little; it wasn't something I never expected so breakfast wasn't awkward for me. Mom would just look emotionally drained and so unkempt with tear stained cheeks and bloodshot eyes from the night before. Dad would be passed out on the couch in the basement. I would just eat the breakfast mom never failed to make, and put my uniform on for elementary school. I made sure to leave looking the most cleanly out of everyone else in the house.

City school was hard shit, and any sign of looking like you were weak got you into so much trouble with other kids. It stayed with appearance for a while, at least until you got older and became an awkward prepubescent teen. Then everyone was a dick by then not matter _what_ you did. That's when I began to realize that power was not just achieved by looking the part of confidence, but the act was what spoke much further.

By the time middle school was part of my life my father had committed so many felonies that he had gone to prison and was later shanked by an inmate during a riot, dying shortly after. But my mother was too emotionally damaged by then, and was in no state of relief even when he was gone. From that incident to simply put it, she had no room left to care for another human being, much less herself. Not even her only child. But it wasn't something that bothered me anyway; I couldn't miss what I never had.

Besides I had my own problems, and that was being bullied by other kids. After being indifferent to tragedy and pain occurring to others all these years, I began to feel a general hatred for it only to myself. I often reflected about how my mother would just tuck her tail between her legs and take it by my father for so long. But instead of giving genuine concern for my own parent, I would seethe inwardly in anger of how fucking stupid she was to not defend herself. I knew that that wasn't going to happen to me, no chance in Hell was I going to take shit from anyone.

However the beatings continued nearly every day from middle school to junior year. It was much trial and error for me to perfect how to get people to fuck off. Meanwhile throughout all that time, the failing results of my methods began to fuel the anger I had growing in the pit of my stomach. Mix that in with the teenage angst we all know and love, and you had yourself a bomb within me.

I became that loathsome teen who didn't socialize with anyone and everybody knew it. I'd keep to myself and just go through the motions of being a reasonably smart student to maintain my grades. It was my motive to keep my middle finger raised to anyone who thought I was going to be a loser like my dead father and drug addicted mother. Because when your dad had such a known reputation of becoming jail bait and your mom was so far gone in hope or reason, you became the prime target for bullies.

The bruises, cuts, scrapes, and black eyes were enough to make me take long and intense showers in the locker room after school. I would reflect there, and wash off the blood and grit from my skin and hair long after the building was empty and only the janitors stayed for late night cleaning. Luckily for me the custodians didn't care that I would do, as the apparent results of being beat up was enough for them to leave me alone. And besides, my house didn't have warm water to bathe in so for me this was a luxury.

But it was one night when my junior year was reaching its last few weeks before summer vacation; I had forgotten that it was prom night for the junior and senior class. It became all the more frustrating for me to suddenly remember that a few days prior to the event I had made a mental note not to stick around and shower that day. I realized this when I had turned the nob for the shower head to OFF, and the bass was rattling the pipes from the gym on the floor above me. '

* * *

"_Shit." _

With my green hair drenched and dripping still, I wasted no time to slip delicately out of the shower stall to recover my clothes that I habitually leave on one of the sinks. The paranoia set in though that someone was going to come down here and see me in nothing but a towel. It wasn't like anyone else but custodians knew that I resided here, for I kept it a careful secret to preserve my only peaceful moments from mock and ridicule.

Quickly I hustled and scrambled around to redress myself in a changing room; my mind was swimming with plans. If I could leave the building undetected, then I wouldn't have to confront anybody and have to explain why my hair was wet and worst of all…why I wasn't even dressed formally for a _prom_.

Then there was the echo of a closing door that reverberated off the tile, I froze. It became hard to tell if the steady rhythm of the bass upstairs was what I was hearing within the endless silence, or my heart that was beating madly out of my chest in panic.

Then I didn't hear anything.

Carefully listening through my increased sense of fight or flight, I did begin to hear the approaching footsteps of someone drawing near. But whoever this person was, they were either trying to step lightly to sneak around or they naturally walked that way. Of course I chose the first possibility. Even a thought began to cross my mind; regardless of who this person was coming into the locker room, I was going to jump them. I was going to jump them and beat the living shit out of them to prove a point that I wasn't going to be someone to mess with.

It was as if I was waiting for this moment all along to find a victim to send my message to everyone. A smirk developed on my lips, and when I saw the outline of somebody through the curtain standing near I sprung out and tackled them.

I felt the feeling of my first high. The adrenaline as I remember wailing out a punch at this guy's face was not like a panicked survival feeling, but a rush of pure enjoyment. My victim had reasonably struggled under my weight as I delivered another blow. Only this time my fist was being squeezed to prevent me from continuing my assault.

"WHAT THE _FUCK_ IS YOUR PROBLEM!?"

The look of perplexity must have shown on my face, because then my so called victim landed a punch on me and I slid off him holding my bloody nose. That's when this guy picked me up to slam me against the wall and hold me there. My upper back wrenched in pain from an old injury of someone doing that to me in an alley about six months ago to rob me of my pocket change. I tried not to show it but this guy kept his gaze on me, and I grimaced slightly of the fresh pain on my nose and back.

That's when I got a good look at him. He had a cold and irritated glare at me with blue-gray eyes to resemble his hair. He had white suit on with a carnation in his chest pocket, and by the looks of my attack he had his hair neatly combed until I jumped him. I noticed the forming bruise next to his left eye, realizing that I failed to give him a shiner. He didn't look like anyone I've seen in this school before, looked too well-kept to be from a ghetto.

"Are you going to give me a justified reason for attacking me or do I have to beat it out of you!?" He hissed. Yeah he was way too properly spoken to be from this school.

"I...thought you were someone else." I remember forcing myself to speak words after a slack jawed attempt and a hesitation.

My blue-haired assailant looked like he considered that for a moment before releasing his grip on me to let me get regain my distance. He grumbled. "Figures…this school seems rather trashy. I wish I didn't have to be here for such a low budget looking prom. "

Those words caught me oddly offended. I began to bristle and that anger in my stomach began to churn again. "Excuse me!?" I snapped at him, I showed no interest in backing down from that comment. "Just because this school is shit doesn't mean everyone who's in it is!"

My assailant quirked an eyebrow at me, before a small and impressed smirk tugged his lips. He looked almost thoughtful of my words. "Huh, you don't seem like everyone else I've met tonight that goes here."

Now _that_ caught me off guard and my angry raised finger was the proof of that as I lowered my defenses and tense posture. "I don't?"

"No." The blue-haired stranger replied. "Which is a relief because I was about to leave."

I glanced suspiciously in his direction. "Why are you even here in the first place then?"

He shrugged. "My cousin goes here. Apparently mum _forgot_ to provide me with that little detail when she volunteered me to be her date tonight to her parents." A bored expression revealed on his face. "But she's gawking with her friends and I grew tiresome of the ordeal. Simply, I decided to poke around this school to pass the time." His eyes narrowed. "And then you jumped me."

"What's your name?" I replied and surprised myself for doing so.

"What's _yours_?" A careful look was placed upon my own as he narrowed his blue-gray eyes in a way that was completely a mocking gesture to me. He even smirked a bit like he was playing some one sided game I wasn't supposed to know about, but acknowledge it was being applied on me.

"Uhh…Prooo-….ton."

"Archer," He stuck his hand out to me and I almost was going to slap mine out to deflect it. It was obvious I was geared to react to sudden movements in a defensive way based on my history. But simply, Archer wanted to shake it.

After a long momentary look of this guy I slowly did the same before we both had a firm handshake of mutual peace. It was official to me that Archer was…weird. He had to be around my age I mean, I only turned eighteen. I concluded he was eighteen going on nineteen, but he was from the rich private schools in the wealthy part of the city.

* * *

'It turned out I made a good guess but I wasn't entirely accurate. I later found out that he did in fact go to a wealthy private school in Celadon, and that he was learning to become knowledgeable in business and technology. He was also a junior like I was, but because of a transfer of schools a few years back he should have been a senior and was actually nineteen.

Looking back on it now, I remember the rest of that night pretty clearly. We ended up leaving my school, and he actually had his own car. I remember feeling pretty stupid and envious of the fact this kid had his own means of transportation and could afford it. But Archer didn't inquire much of my life, at least not at first. He talked about his issues after he drove us out of the city and to the beaches that lined the shores of Kanto a few miles out of town. Then he got cozy with a bottle of vodka he had in his trunk, and truth be told he introduced me to alcohol then too.

Apparently his parents were forcing him into a career that he had no desire for, which was working for the Silph Company in Saffron City. His grades were so excellent at his school that there was some sort of internship opportunity available after he graduated. I was confused about why he was telling me this, and also why he would want to give up such a financially set career for the rest of his life. He further explained to me after getting a bit buzzed that his parents were so rich and successful that they never spent time with him as a kid.

So it was one of _those_ stories of the rich only child who just wanted a hug from mommy once in a while. But then there was more to it, it was because he found out he was actually adopted without them knowing he figured it out. I didn't understand that being adopted by a rich couple and then hardly being paid any attention to was a heartbreaking thing. I mean shit, I would have loved to have that happen to me. Nevertheless, the unexplainable choices and feelings of the teenage psyche began to occur as we had decided to keep in contact with each other even after the night was over.

That summer became a confusing and rather interesting test for my otherwise dull and self-loathing emotions. Archer and I would spend countless hours on the phone during the days he couldn't pick me up from my usually boring lifestyle at home. Even you'd think that with my sudden socialization with another human being and talking on the phone every night would be noticed by my mother. However, she was always so much off her ass on some sort of drug in front of the TV, I don't believe she even knew what day it was at that point.

But it did become a convenient situation that I was assumedly non-existent in my mother's deteriorating life. There was never any reason to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night when a secret outing with Archer was available. I only needed to state loud enough that I was going out to save myself the guilt of leaving the house without telling her. I never got a word as a reply, just an audible grunt or uttered noise to imply she was actually listening. Although even a response like that was occasional.

By then Archer and I had developed a routine on how to meet up with each other when he said he was coming to get me. I would walk a few blocks to clear distance from myself and the ghetto and meet him at a more reasonable place like the city park. Reason being with a well maintained looking car that Archer had, he'd get himself shot if he regularly visited my neighborhood. Though it wasn't just him getting shot by a drunken neighbor I was worried about, I was also afraid I would get harassed for it by the other kids that beat me up during school if they found out.

However my careful methods of retaining my secret to the rest of the neighborhood paid off as I had spent most of my time with Archer nearly every day and even sometimes overnight. It wasn't hard for both of us to keep our summer fling a secret, and swiping booze from his parent's wine cellar was as easy as stealing could get. I learned I had a thing for stealing as it actually came to be a natural skill of mine. Never really did have to apply it for anything despite my situation, but once I found out I could do it well I wanted to practice it further.

Archer was actually quite a devious little shit I found when we started hanging out. He knew all the tricks of how to manipulate a person to do things for him, generally speaking. He knew how to fuck with people with psychological shit and knew virtually every weakness of the human mind and body. Oddly enough within my own sick mind I found that more of an interest to me than a turn off. He said it was how the business world works. Only he disagreed with how his school taught it and saw the flaws when using it to benefit people other than you.

Archer even always said that I had potential to be someone admired and feared like I had always wanted to be ever since the constant harassment at school. I never understood why he would give me such an interested look like he was planning something every time those opinions were expressed to me. In the back of my mind though, I had a feeling it was more than just an interesting conversation to him. Like he was getting ready to do something…extreme.

Eventually I expressed my own life's history, Archer would say pretty much the exact same things I always thought about when it came to the flaws of my parents. We agreed that overall society either well maintained, or gone to shit was something we could manipulate into our benefit. In respect we were one in the same, and with him I felt… complete. And that was strange, because I never felt like I wasn't before.

It must have been that emotion I had no experience of prior to meeting this guy in my school's locker room on prom night. This could only be explained as your first love. And eventually, those deep conversations on the hood of his car on the beach at night grew even deeper. Although we also did what misbehaving teens of our age would typically do. Like drink in his car on the beach until wasted, and either pass out together in the backseat or have a good fuck. '

* * *

On the last night of summer vacation I felt rather depressed. I was rarely ever depressed, never letting things get to me to expose a vulnerable shell beneath my wall of stone. But that night I was, and Archer knew it. Sitting slumped over on the hood of his car, a beer bottle was on my lap as I thought deeply about how school was beginning tomorrow.

Usually, I would melt into Archer's soothing advances of running fingers through my green hair and nuzzling his face into the crook of my neck to loosen my overall tension. Apparently I was tense a lot.

"Why are you not yourself tonight?" the blue-haired teen had inquired softly.

"I don't know what you mean by that." I tried to play it off, but Archer's exaggerated exhale made a hot spot on my neck that caused me to shift slightly.

"You haven't finished off even half of your beer, that's when I know there's something bothering you."

I grumbled and squirmed further with little desire to talk about it. But there was no getting past Archer, he was too good at reading emotions.

"Summer's ending tonight." I said briskly. "And then it's one more year of Hell."

"Mm." My companion replied as he straightened himself to sit upright. He didn't stop fingering through my hair however. "You know all those talks I had about getting what you want by force wasn't just all for conversation."

I turned my head slightly to put a one-eyed glance to him before looking back to my neglected beer. "I'm not exactly willing to converse with my enemies with the voice of reason like you do, you know."

"I didn't expect you to." Archer replied coolly and slid off the hood of his car to retrieve something from the trunk. I looked up then and turned halfway around to make out what he was going to get. It couldn't have been more booze, I didn't even finish the first one.

When he came back though, he had small hard case and sat back onto the hood with me. There was a smirk widening on his lips, and that spark of intensity in his eyes. I raised an eyebrow of my own, unsure if I wanted to know what he was planning. But for once he looked eager to get me in on it this time.

Flipping the latch with a finger he opened the case, and to my surprise there was an automatic hand gun in a felt impression of that specific model. He took it out and held it like he's spent a long time using one. "Have you ever used one of these before?"

I'm sure at that moment my eyes couldn't have been wider as I looked at it being raised at me. I had a minor freak out. "No Archer…! Why are you pointing that at me!? OH MY FUCKING GOD!" I scooted off the hood of the car to face him at a distance. There was a "pffth" sound coming from my companion.

"I'm not going to shoot you Proton, and besides it's on the safety." Archer replied casually and let the gun dangle from his thumb. "This will be the solution to all your problems, babe." Another smirk.

Trying to stop myself from uncontrollably trembling from fighting all urges to flee, I managed to utter out, "Wh-what do you mean the…solution?"

Archer laid narrowed blue eyes at my wide-as-fuck green ones for a moment. He did that when he was in some sort of thought. Pulling off the lid's fabric, he revealed a secret stash of letters. They were black envelopes and had a stamp with the distinguishable red 'R' of Team Rocket. The print was typed in white that had both mine and Archer's name, along with Archer's home address.

"What….what are those? Archer..? Archer why do you have those letters?" I couldn't stop asking questions. Like seriously, what the fuck? Everyone knew who Team Rocket was, you didn't have to be poor and Pokemon-less to know who they were. My mind reeled with questions I was unsure I verbally said, and there was no answer to any of them.

The blue headed teen had put the gun back in the case and approached me with the pile of letters. "Listen." He looked to me with his serious gaze, it calmed me slightly somehow. "You know I don't want to go work at Silph Co. when I graduate." I nodded swiftly. "A little before I had met you, I had found a few…connections to Team Rocket thanks to my _father_ and his blind eye to who he was making business deals with. I managed to apply the skills I learned at school to persuade one of the grunts to let me in on how to join their organization." It took me a bit longer for me to nod that I understood this time, but after a moment I did so more slowly. "Apparently with my outstanding grades and overall demeanor, Team Rocket was interested in my application. From there I had that plan in motion."

"So," I eventually spoke after registering that bit of Archer I didn't know. "How does this involve me then?"

Archer's eyes lit up again as he beamed to me as if he was delighted of my newfound curiosity. "When you jumped me in the locker room that night I knew there was something about you, among other things of course." He smirked to me again before he furthered himself into my personal space to whisper lowly into my ear. "When I learned more about you and how you and I both agree on the same ideals, I added your name into my next response letter. When I got a reply, they were already willing to accept you, Proton. But I didn't tell you yet because, I wanted to wait until we became even closer so that when I brought it up, you wouldn't be more susceptible to declining the offer from someone you hardly knew."

Damn. I was staring blankly ahead as he whispered this to me, thinking of how good Archer really was with psychological shit like that he if just pulled it on his own boyfriend of three months.

"I don't know…what you want me to… say exactly…about this." I finally spoke in short intervals. Turning to him, he placed a hand on my cheek and looked like he pitied my confusion.

"Ohh Proton," he crooned. "I know how frustrated you must feel about having to deal with another awful year in high school. And what then after you graduate? Did you ever think of how hard it will be going to a university without any applicable funds from your mother?"

My heart felt the sting of truth by those words. It was true, I had no plans after high school since that place alone already occupied most of my angst and reason…

"You are impeccably unique by the standards of Team Rocket you know, and of course to my own standards of expressing any genuine concern to another person besides me." Archer pressed.

"Yeah but don't they just let anyone in to that place or whatever?" I interjected to my companion's flow of justification.

"Not like everyone else thinks." The blue-headed teen replied. "We can become rather superior in that company, we could even be so good we'd raise the ranks to some elite title!"

"Sorta sounds like you're shootin' to the moon with a broken arrow there Archer." I warned but he shook his head at me.

"That's something I still need to expand your mind on. How to relentlessly get what you want no matter the effort that's required." He replied briskly. I simply shrugged a bit, it must have been a business thing. "That's what I hoped the gun would help with."

I suddenly remembered the gun... Being into the whole Team Rocket thing had made me forget how this started in the first place. "Wait what do you want me to do with the gun? And how is that going to get me into Team Rocket with you?"

Archer laughed a bit to me as if he was amused by my behavior tonight. I suppose for him it was a little out of my character. "Getting back to what I was talking about, this gun will solve all your problems." He spoke before I got a chance to repeat my question. "Guns are the ultimate statement to others of how you are not fooling around with people taking advantage of you any longer." He stroked my cheek with a mischievous thin-lipped smile. "I have little use for guns as I do hate to get my hands dirty. But I knew my father had one, and that he wouldn't know if it…became missing for a while. You're a very physical negotiator in the sense you use force to get what you want, I can see it brewing within you."

"I was once told that using guns is a sign of weakness opposed to using your own strength." I said and looked to Archer, almost expectantly I realized for a correction to that.

"Those are weak words constructed by those who know they can't _handle_ it." Archer purred a bit. "A poor play on words to prevent a false sense of security. Guns and physical strength can be used equally, you can easily have skill in both."

I thought deeply on this. If I were to bring this gun to school, and shoot down my tormenters from years of abuse I would finally make myself known as someone who would no longer be taking anyone's shit. No more would I have to lock up the monster inside me who desired to break free from my mental cage by my words of, '_not yet'_, and _'we'll figure out what works in time, just not yet.' _

"The solution to all my problems…" I murmured as I had made my way back over to the gun in the open case.

"Team Rocket will know of it because it would be all over the news region wide. But before the police would even find you to investigate further, you'll have disappeared into your new life path with me."

Picking up the pistol, I weighed it in my hands and inspected it closely. Maybe Archer was thinking too much into this, but really I didn't have anything to lose.

"Alright." I agreed with a short nod. "Tell me how to use this thing and we'll get started."

* * *

'The following day was the best thrill ride I had ever come to know at that point in my life. Careful instructions were taken to account by Archer on how to shoot a gun, the rest was my own thrilling anticipation about what was going to go down.

And for the first time in my life, I had an uncontrollable grin on my face throughout the day. It was from ear to ear and nobody understood what it was about. That just made my cheeks hurt with delight. By the time lunch period had begun, I took my time to get the books out of my locker knowing that the fuckers that wronged me for so many years passed by this hallway to get to the cafeteria since the first day of freshman year. I kept a hand in my hands in my pockets at the first site of them, leaning against my locker.

Sure enough, they took their first initiative to hustle me, push me around between them but I was unaffected by the ordeal. They noticed this, got angry with me, and thought I needed to be put in my place. One of them had wielded out a balled fist to wail a punch on me, but then that bomb in me finally _exploded_.

There was a loud and deafening bang as I finally snapped, and the rest was history. The assailant had looked to me with a glazed over look in the shock of his life slipping away. I stared intently into his dying eyes that had always sneered at me for while beating me up all those fucking years. I began to shriek with laughter. The other two lackeys had the faces I often had dreams about, the look of complete horror and weakness.

They ran from me, but that did nothing for them. It only made that same high return like the day I had jumped Archer as I raised my gun to shoot them with natural precision. The look of all that blood gushing from their backs was like a masterpiece to me. It was the most beautiful damn thing I had ever seen…down to the color and lighting of the falling droplets. The fire alarm had sounded, and I knew then that was all I needed to know that I was done. Amidst all the screaming and panic, it fell to the deaf ears of mine, and I walked out through the back doors after tossing the gun in the trash. I never looked back to the building that made such a blaring alarm sound of danger. I made that mad dash like everyone else was to get away from it. Only my heart was racing for a different reason, the knowledge to know that I finally won…and it wouldn't be the last time that I did.'

* * *

**Epilogue:** _'The police never did find Proton after that. Since his mother was poor, he had no credit history like a normal nineteen year old would when it came to having a job or making an important purchase. The same result with having a criminal record. But for weeks it was speculation on the news. Within that time, the school's records of their missing student was the only lead that sent the police to Proton's home, where the body of Proton's mother was sitting on the couch in front of the ever running news station. _

_She had overdosed herself to death. '_


End file.
